Field Notes

Known for her insightful and thought-provoking journalism, New Yorker writer Elizabeth Kolbert now tackles the controversial subject of global warming. Americans have been warned since the late nineteen-seventies that the buildup of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere threatens to melt the polar ice sheets and irreversibly change our climate. With little done since then to alter this dangerous course, now is the moment to salvage our future. By the end of the century, the world will likely be hotter than it’s been in the last two million years, and the sweeping consequences of this change will determine the future of life on earth for generations to come.

Venture into the woods alongside a pioneering female mycologist. This one-of-a-kind, keepsake volume celebrates the timeless fascination of fungi.

When Julia Zarankin saw her first red-winged blackbird at the age of thirty-five, she didn't expect that it would change her life. Recently divorced and auditioning hobbies during a stressful career transition, she stumbled on birdwatching, initially out of curiosity for the strange breed of humans who wear multi-pocketed vests, carry spotting scopes and discuss the finer points of optics with disturbing fervour. What she never could have predicted was that she would become one of them. Not only would she come to identify proudly as a birder, but birding would ultimately lead her to find love, uncover a new language and lay down her roots.

Rolling guitar plucks atop sonic waves of keys and sweeping violin strings usher in the folk-y croon of Graeme James in ‘The Wild’ as he longs for the comforts of the outdoors. James says of the new song, “Having been raised in Ng?motu / New Plymouth, with the wild sea on one side and the solitary peak of Mt Taranaki on the other, I was blessed with an abundance of places to explore and get lost in.

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